Within the scope of the invention, the tubular pieces are generally made from a resistant reinforcement bonded at least on the surface to a polymerizable product. Such pieces may be used for packing pressurized liquids or gas, for transferring fluids, as mechanical support, or as packings of projectiles or missile launching tubes, in particular.
It is known to make such tubular pieces from fibers, for example glass fibers bonded by a polymerizable resin, which are either wound in contiguous manner around a mandrel, or disposed contiguously side by side around a mandrel, extending parallel to said mandrel, or by straight winding of a sheet of such material on itself around a mandrel. However, none of these solutions has proved entirely satisfactory from the standpoint of mass-production. In addition, it is difficult, if not impossible, to carry out such processes continuously.
Furthermore, a process for manufacturing a tube of cardboard or like material from at least one web of cardboard is known, in which the or each cardboard web is helically wound around a mandrel, and the or each web wound around the mandrel is driven parallel to the longitudinal axis of the mandrel with the aid of frictional drive means.
Such a process allows cardboard tubes having a good resistance to buckling to be continuously produced in simple and reliable manner. However, such a process could not be used as such for making tubular pieces from webs constituted by a resistant reinforcement bonded at least on the surface to a polymerizable product, due to the very presence of said polymerizable product.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to adapt said known process to the production of tubular pieces as defined hereinabove.